St. George’s, 22nd February 2016: The Director General of the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), Mr.  Joachim Prey accompanied by Marina Meuss, Head of the Regional Office of GIZ , visited Grenada to hold meetings with Dr. The Right Honourable Keith Mitchell, Hon. Minister Gregory Bowen, Hon. Minister Roland Bhola, Hon. Minister Alvin DaBreo and Mike Sylvester, Acting Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance.

In collaboration with the Government of Grenada, GIZ has been implementing a variety of different climate change projects in Grenada (see box).

His visit also included meetings with farmers based in the Moliniere Beausejour watershed area and with the Board and Management of Grenada Distillers Ltd to discuss an innovative biogas project to reduce waste and produce renewable energy at Clarke’s Court Distillery.

Mr Prey was highly satisfied not only with the work of GIZ in Grenada, but in particular with the cooperation and active engagement of the public and private partners of GIZ: “Grenada surely stands out with the enormous spirit of national ownership and involvement of the Government and other partners.”

And he added: “This is critical for the approach the Government of Germany takes in its development cooperation projects:

GIZ’s highly competent workforce needs active and capable partners in order to achieve sustainable success. And from what I have seen, this is what we have here in Grenada, and I applaud the Government and the people of Grenada for that achievement!”

In addition to the Director General’s visit, the first two months of 2016 have been busy for GIZ and its various partners: Public officers and civil society organizations were trained to start regular monitoring of Grenada’s beaches to identify changes and inform planning, a composting heap in St. Andrew has been finalized, 700 mangroves were planted in Telescope, a mission assessed which ones is the most suitable organization to ensure Grenada’s access to the multi-billion Green Climate,  the development of a National Climate Change Adaptation Plan started and a regional conference on waste-to energy was held.
Dr. The Right Honourable Keith Mitchell said, “Grenada is proud to have the Government of Germany as an important partner in combatting the negative impacts of climate change; not only through close cooperation in international negotiation rounds like the World Climate Change Conference in November 2015 in Paris, where the delegation of Grenada, jointly with Germany, was instrumental in ensuring that the world community committed itself to maintaining global warming below 2 degrees Celsius; but also through concrete projects at the various different communities across the tri-island state.”

The Prime Minister also stressed the importance of gaining access to the Green Climate Fund and he thanked GIZ and the Government of Germany for the support in this regard.
In Grenada, GIZ’s flagship is the “Integrated Climate Change Adaptation Strategies (ICCAS)” Programme, funded by the German Ministry for the Environment, Building, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, and implemented jointly with the Environment Division of the Ministry of Agriculture and UNDP.